79-Teacher Hiring Blitz Nearing a Happy End

Bucking conventional wisdom, the Conejo Valley school district had no difficulty hiring 65 of the 79 teachers necessary to shrink class size in three primary grades to 20 by the start of the school year, officials said Monday.

Despite a much-predicted teacher crunch, the 18,858-student Conejo Valley Unified School District expects to have hired the additional 14 teachers by Friday at the latest, said Jody Dunlap, the district’s assistant superintendent for personnel services, at a special two-hour school board meeting.

The school district must still find the space to put the extra teachers and smaller classes for first, second and third grades.

The new hires are of “excellent” caliber, Dunlap said after the meeting called to discuss the district’s response to a state initiative to shrink classes for the youngest students.

“Lots of people have been trying to teach in the district for a long time,” she said. “We’re a nice community, and we’re a nice district, but we just didn’t have the openings.” Now they do, she added, but not for long.

Fresh hires were culled from an April job fair hosted by the district, from recent college graduating classes and from the existing pool of substitute teachers, Dunlap said. Contrary to fears in the Los Angeles Unified School District, Conejo Valley scooped up only one retiring teacher from the massive district to the south.

Salary and benefits for the newly hired first-, second- and third-grade teachers are averaging about $40,000 a year, said Regena Ward, the district’s head of accounting.

The state, which is divvying up $771 million to school districts that get on the class-size reduction bandwagon, will reimburse the district $650 for each pupil in the pared classes.

In sum, Conejo Valley schools can expect about $2.76 million from the initiative; it will make up an anticipated difference of $475,000.

The school district has taken a clear lead in the race to hire teachers, with Moorpark not far behind.

Other districts in the county--including Simi Valley, Camarillo’s Pleasant Valley, Oxnard, Oak Park and Ventura--have agreed to take advantage of the money for smaller classes. Some have moved to recruit teachers; others have ordered portable classrooms; and some have yet to take a formal vote.

As of Monday, eight of the Conejo Valley’s 18 elementary schools were fully staffed for the start of school in a month.

But hiring teachers is the easy piece of this puzzle, district officials readily acknowledged. Finding space to house the new teachers and the smaller classes is far more problematic.

In the short run, individual schools will rely heavily on piecemeal solutions, explained Barbara Ryan, director of elementary education. To squeeze more class space from the existing school sites, morning and afternoon kindergarten classes will share a room at most elementary schools.

Other space-conserving measures include:

* Scrunching 40 squirmy youngsters and a pair of teachers into existing classrooms at about seven schools including Banyan, Glenwood and Ladera.

* Moving or disbanding centralized computer labs at schools including Banyan, Glenwood, Manzanita and Meadows in favor of putting the technology in individual classrooms.

* Relocating staff rooms and consolidating two special education learning centers each into one at Walnut and Manzanita elementary schools.

While teachers fully back plans to shrink class size, they “are very concerned about this 40 students and two teachers in a classroom issue,” said Susan Falk, president of the Unified Assn. of Conejo Teachers. Teachers fear youngsters would be easily distracted in the combined classrooms.

Meantime, housing plans for the long range are “completely open,” said Facilities Director Sean G. Corrigan. Portable classrooms, six of which the district has already ordered for $29,000 each, are but one option.

The Legislature allotted $200 million for school districts to make room for the smaller classes, and Conejo Valley Unified could receive as much as $450,000 of that, but will likely receive less, he said.

With that money, Corrigan added, the district could also ease facility crowding by staggering daily schedules, opening school year round or reopening Triunfo and Horizon Hills elementary schools--all options which the school board will consider at an Aug. 20 study session and a meeting two days later.

The uncertainty over classroom space and revenue sources troubled board members Dolores Didio and Mildred C. Lynch.

“I’ve been assured that this is going to work,” Didio said. “I’ve been assured that everyone is going to be happy. But I still have reservations.”

But nothing could dampen the spirits of Walnut Elementary Principal Brad Baker.

“We haven’t hired a new teacher in eight years. This is a shot in the arm,” Baker told the board. “I was up [planning] at 4 a.m. this morning, it’s so much fun.”

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65 Down, 14 to Go

In the race to hire enough teachers to shrink class size to 20 or fewer in the primary grades, the 18,858-student Conejo Valley Unified School District is rapidly approaching the finish line, having hired 65 of the needed 79 teachers as of Monday. Of the district’s 18 elementary schools, eight have already hired enough teachers to have smaller first-, second- and third-grade classes come September. The others are expected to be fully staffed by the end of the week.

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Elementary Teachers Teachers school needed hired Acacia 4 3 Aspen 3 2 Banyan 5 4 Conejo 4 1 Cypress 3 *3 Glenwood 3 2 Ladera 6 *6 Madrona 6 *6 Manzanita 4 *4 Maple 2 *2 Meadows 4 *4 Park Oaks 4 *4 University 4 3 Walnut 5 4 Weathersfield 5 4 Westlake 6 5 Westlake Hills 7 4 Wildwood 4 *4 TOTAL 79 65

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* Denotes schools that have completed all hiring

Source: Conejo Valley Unified School District records